Tharavad n. A traditional Kerala home, often accomodating large joint families. ~i n. member of a Tharavad. ~iz /-ees/ n. To know the meaning read ahead...

     The Legend of Tharavadiz is the epic saga of thirteen brave boys who joined an Engineering College and left as men.

     The various constituent elements of Tharavad joined University College of Engineering, Thodupuzha (UCET) by mid or end 1997. After having squirmed through the nightmare called Entrance Examination, it was a step into a brave, uncertain new world. For most of them it was the first real experience of  freedom, away from the protective womb called home. It was a tough choice, the comforting path of studies and books was on one side while the sirensong of freedom, on the other hand, was mesmerising to say the least.

     They saw very little of each other during the first few months of College. This was natural. If God had ever created thirteen different moulds to cast his creations then each Tharavadi would be a sample from one of those distinct moulds!

     A semi-nucleus for a prospective Tharavad(though the name was adopted much later) was first laid when Dipu, Pras, Hari and Biju when they decided to lodge together. Ginto and Anand too were residing in the vicinity and soon struck up a strong bond of friendship. Meanwhile, Unnikuttan(Ajith), Iqu ,Jagan and Panni(Aneesh)  too had grouped together, though quite far away. It was the efforts of these four to secure a decent stay as near to the college as possible which brought the magestic house into the picture. The house was, infact, too large for just four both in terms of space and rent. A round figure of 13 was decided to be the population of Tharavad as this would neatly fill-in the rooms as well as make the stay affordable. Soon the various smaller groups of individuals coalesed in to a larger gang and with the recruitment of Prasheen(Pashu) and Samji(Samu) the curry was ready. But it did lack the signature punch that sets apart a normal curry from a delicasy. Throw-in the spice called Sojish and Tharavad was now a sizzling Indian-dish.

     Much of the credit for having ignited an initial passion for unity goes to Unnikuttan. He first imbibed the sense of belonging amongst the hetrogeneous group of individuals and brought them together with a battle cry a la The Three Musketeers. Once started the spirit of Tharavad grew into an inferno and none in UCET could claim to have been untouched by it.

     The greatest single plus points of the Tharavadiz was the ingrained sense of individualism even inside the group. This could possibly explain the reason for the immediate acceptance of cricket as the official game of Tharavad, for, cricket is that one game of individuals in a group frame-work. The individualism of every Tharavadi was so strong that there was no scope for any kind of dictatorship or autocracy of any kind and democracy reigned supreme. Each one had his own opinion on any given matter, and would go to the utmost to defend his position. Walk-outs were rare but the right to stage a walk-out was respected. and at the end of it all, the view of the majority was implemented.

     Each Tharavadi improved with the help of his fellow Tharavadi. The average marks of the Tharavadiz rose from a paltry 58% in the pre-Tharavad days to an astonishing 74% towards the end of the eight semester! Tharavad had its share of representation to the various house and also the college cricket team while the general cricketing capability and acumen improved by leaps and bounds. The standard of spoken English, Malayalam and Hindi too saw an upward graph. The size of the group made it a self-contained practice-ground for perfecting the fine art of group-discussion in view of prospective job placements. False inhibitions were rooted out and fresh ideas were the order of the day. Each Tharavadi took to a different specialisation of the vast subject that is Computer Science & Engineering. Expert advice was sought at the doors of Tharavad for a range of topics from VB to VC, from Mathematics to Applied graphics, from Sound FX to Photo Editing , from Windows to Linux and everything in between. The (in)famous lab at Tharavad was the culture medium for many an experiment in everything conceivable from software-viruses to hardware-dissections.

     The placement season brought-in a rich harvest for the Tharavadiz with most of the Tharavadiz placed in various organisations of repute or better still, running their own e-businesses. HAL, WIPRO, TCS, DELL, Syntel and Poornam are some of the companies where the Tharavadiz have been placed while some are persuing their dreams for a Master’s Degree.

     One cannot wind-up a biography of the Tharavadiz without mention of some of the ever-present faces at Tharavad who in ways more than one have made Tharavad what it was, is and always will be. In no particular order the Tharavadiz would like to acknowledge our friends Leeboy, DOS Games, Arun Jose(Gulikan), Gym Arun, Rijosh, Cyril, Vivek, Koli, ‘The Royal Symphony’, Siraj(Akri), Preman, Bandarjee, Shyju and all the other UCET-ites who havent found a mention here but will always stay close to our hearts... Geetha, A.K, Nanditha, Liana, Nisha, Heera and Saumya have stood by the Tharavadiz at various stages of crisis and so the futile attempt to articulate appreciation shall be left unattempted.